This is a informative article, outside of the normal DLD activities, to bring awareness to a pair of bills currently under much discussion and debate. These bills are called called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIP (Protect IP), presented to the House of Representatives and the senate (respectively) in the United States. Later in this article, we will also discuss how these bills have a world wide significance. At the end of the article are several links to the actual bill, news articles, and forum/journals related to this topic. Our aim here is to give to a brief overview, and to answer some questions concerning this debate.

SOPA itself is an attempt to stop online piracy both domestic and foreign by the United States Gov't. It employs a variety of tactics in order to achieve this, including scanning and recording of data transfers, blocking DNS lookups of any infringing sites, and denial of payment to sites via payment providers. The wording and measures used within the bill itself make it very dangerous, allowing it to apply to sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Google, YouTube, and yes..deviantArt.

I heard this was defeated in the House already. Why discuss it?I have yet to find a reliable source to confirm this being defeated. In the event it does not pass the pass the House, it is expected to be reintroduced and attempted again.

This is censorship. It can't pass, it's against the first amendment / against the law/ etcNot true. The gov't has violated First Amendment before in the case of the Patriot Act (ACLU brief: www.deviantart.com/users/outgo…, NY-DN www.deviantart.com/users/outgo…). That act was rewritten in 2005 and 2007, but is still a source of controversy due to it violating prestablished rights and overturning laws that were already in effect. Despite it violating the Bill of Rights, the bill was still passed, and was granted a 4 year extension in the spring of 2011. What makes that scary is that, yes, this new bill should not make it through congress and should be shot down. But bills like this have made it through Congress and have been upheld later on, so we can't count on it being rejected even if it does violate First Amendment.

How can this effect me in Canada/Ireland/Anywhere outside the US?Many popular websites depend on social networking / linking, payment for features, or donations in order to survive. Imagine the US being unable to type type in Ebay, Facebook, Flickr, or deviantArt into theit browsers anymore, and the number of users these site would have to deal with no longer being able to sign in. Or think about some of these site no longer being able to collect moneys from US residents- IE, Ebay not being able to process US payment, dA not being able to process subscription or good orders.

Piracy needs to be stopped. If it takes a heavy hand to do it... Pirates are resourceful. Much more resourceful then a simple DNS block. goto:'s have existed for a long time, straight IP and peer to peer via IP address would still exist..This bill would be like putting a bandaid on your knee because you cut your finger. It would not help the problem at all. techland.time.com/2011/11/17/s… (Time : Techland)

Stash is being funky, and I'm unable to edit the article for this correction: Stop Online Privacy Act should read Stop Online Piracy Act in the second textual paragraph. Opps. TY! This is a informative article, outside of the normal DLD activities, to bring awareness to a pair of bills currently under much discussion and debate.Additional links:

Question regarding this from =Blonde-Walf, answered in comments but edited in here so it doesn't get lost:Can I just clarify a few things?1 - Why will they block entire sites instead of single pages which break the act?2 - To what extent will this affect fanart/fiction? Will it have to stop all together, or will it just mean there are tighter rules on how much is copied and how much is the artist's own work and crediting, etc?

That is one change in the wording between PIPA and SOPA: The internet service provider (IE Verizon, Time Warner, etc) has the option to use numeric IP blocking and only block offending pages, or to block from the domain name itself (thus blocking the entire site). One of the problems with this is that blocking the offending pages only would require Deep Packet inspection, a technology that is considered intrusive and that many providers do not have the capability to fulfill. ?[link]Also, if a provider did block only the offending page, that still leaves the site open for denied payments through their ads, payment providers, and donations. So a two-fold penalty can take place: A link to copyrighted material is found; The page or the site itself is blocked; then Paypal, AdSense, Visa/Mastercard, etc are contacted and told to refuse payment to the host site. Even with deep packet inspections, the site can still be screwed. :/ [link]Fanfic, I'm not completely familiar on how that will work out. Reports are various- I've read some things that say it'll be a breech, others that say it is immune as a derivative. Under the current copyright laws, "Fanfiction is not infringing if it constitutes fair use of the underlying copyrighted work. In determining whether a particular use constitutes fair use, courts consider the following four factors:1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;2. the nature of the copyrighted work;3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”In some cases, the copyright and trademark laws concerning it all is about as clear as mud. [link] : Wikipedia: Legal issues with fan fiction

... Just to expand it a little further, here's a quote citing Flickr as an example. Flickr, like dA, uses Ad-based and pay-perview/pay-per-click banner advertising to support their site, so many of the concerns raised for Flickr also apply to dA. Imagine if one user on dA uploaded a copyrighted font, violated copyright in an image or in a piece of writing, and the effect it has over the entire site. Also note, the complaints are made to the internet providers and payment processors, not to dA (or in the example, Flickr) itself. So dA may not even have the chance to rectify the situation before action is taken."Flickr takes copyright issues seriously, and complies with DMCA safe harbor requirements by taking down photos when it gets a valid complaint, establishing a repeat infringer policy, etc.. But it doesn’t proactively monitor its user-generated content for copyright infringement. The language of SOPA is vague enough that an individual or corporate rightsholder could claim this lack of monitoring as “taking … deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the … site to carry out acts that constitute a violation.” Flickr uses an ad network to place advertisements, and accepts payments for premium accounts. Both of those revenue streams could be suspended in a matter of days by a single complaint, and the process of reactivating them could be long and complex." - (Source: [link] , What's On the Blacklist? Three Sites That SOPA Could Put at Risk By Parker Higgins)

I'm glad so many people stood together to stop the SOPA and PIPA acts, however, our fight isn't over. ACTA is another act (yeah, we seriously need to vote out the politicians who keep pushing this stuff....) that is just like SOPA and PIPA.

It makes you wonder why the media is so silent about reporting these and having the people educated about the issue huh?

I beware, SOPA is just a red herring. The noise about it just distracts people from the real problem. The devastation of MegaUpload clearly demonstrated that they don't need SOPA to kill websites with many millions of users and to charge people for nothing, and not only within the USA.

The real problem is that everything is sold, and everything is copyrighted, and, by the way, the copyright owners are not the artists. The American understanding of copyright is faulty. (Compare - in Japan anybody can use a popular character to make fanart, fanfiction, plush dolls, and to sale them. It only rises the popularity of a character). The American understanding of what damage to property was caused by sharing a copyrighted content in the Internet is faulty, too. (They assume that everybody who accessed pirated content would never buy it, otherwise they would certainly buy it. In reality, 90% or even more of those who accessed such content for free would never pay for it anyway, and there is a significant number of those who wouldn't buy it without first looking at it for free.)

As I have read things, The bill has been TEMPORARILY withdrawn. It will be back, in some modified, but probably still dangerous, form. It's still censorship, and government usually uses a cannon to do a flyswatter's job. Congress has yet to successfully ban anything. Prohibition was a massive failure. And the so-called 'War on Drugs' collapsed years ago. But the idiot regulations are still on the books. This would be no more successful, and just as intrusive Yes, there is online piracy, but this is NOT the way to stop it. Piracy will stop only when it risks more than it stands to gain by continuing. And unless, and until, foreign governments enforce the laws already on the books, a new one won't help anyway.

Yes, I totally agree with you. This can't happen! Even the people of my country and all other countries around the world will be harmed by this damn law. This is unfair!! TOTALLY UNFAIR! I don't know what to do... The internet will be transformed in nothing! Our liberty is threatened! The internet is the only place where we can be free and now they invent this? They will affect the whole world with this shit! This is unacceptable! We must unite, we cannot let that happen! What will become of us on the Internet? Internet will not serve us any more!

SOPA? Screw that!!! "People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people."In the Philippines, there is a word for congresspeople like those who are trying to pass the SOPA: "buwaya". It means "crocodile" (that gobbles up your money, your property, your security and eventually your sanity and your life.).

I will be under so much stress if this gets passed. I spend most of my life on the internet, and if this does get passed, not only will almost every site get banned, but it may cause madness on the streets. Rage and riots.

I feel like this bill is nothing more than a power grab. The government already has laws in place that go after piracy and copyright infringement. They don't need this bill on top of it. Not to mention it seems to punish the majority for the acts of the minority and quite frankly I don't trust the government with the power they have now. We should be taking power away from them since they've proven time and time again they can't handle it, not giving them more.

While I agree that we must stop Piracy as to be stop but blocking every Internet site and force people to pay just to be log in the site is very too far and that is very stupid soon or later someone in the government is going to be assassinated for that it could happen.

I sent a letter to congress and it states what right this bill violates

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

I also told them how it will terribly cripple USA's image fortunately our congress is being won over to our side

In short, Land of the free my arse.SERIOUSLY. America has shown it will disregard its own founding ammendments repeatedly for no real good reason...how long before they decide to 'detain' anyone who speaks out against them?

I barely have any hope for our society and where it's going to begin with, but this shows just how little fundamental human rights mean to corporations where people matter less than their yearly income.